As I wrote in my previous post, deciding to divorce is a difficult decision. Concluding whether to stay or go is often complicated by the presence of children, with folks often noting that “We’re staying together for the kids,” or “Once they go to college, we’ll separate.”

As a child of divorce, I know the decision to stay or leave is no easy task. Emotional considerations, financial concerns, and even societal or cultural pressures make hitting the eject button on a marriage difficult. However, as a researcher, I know the detrimental consequences that staying in a conflicted or unhappy marriage has on children.

When I first began my career as a professor, I vividly remember students coming back to campus after Labor Day weekend bereft because their parents told them that they were getting divorced now that “they were out of the house.” This wasn’t an every-student occurrence, obviously, but happened frequently enough that I began to study this phenomenon (i.e., late-life parental divorce) by interviewing adult children of divorce. Often, these adult children were angry at their parents for waiting so long to divorce. Some wondered if their entire childhoods had been a lie, while others reflected on how different their childhoods and lives could have been if their parents divorced when they were younger.

Now, as an adult in middle age, I’ve entered the stage where divorces (or conversations about divorce) are happening regularly. Although some couples make the decision to uncouple, I hear countless others staying together with the best intentions, unaware of the damage they’re unwittingly doing. Although this decision is often made with the children’s well-being in mind, staying in a conflictual or unhappy marriage rather than divorcing has long-term, and often negative, consequences that reverberate far beyond childhood.

Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed and Love Warrior, wrote in one of her books that when she realized she wouldn’t want her own marriage for her children, she realized she had to leave. Think for yourself: Is this the marriage you would want for your child? Is this how you want your child to think marriage or committed partnerships work? Do you want to burden your child with your emotional needs?

Although many parents have wonderful intentions when deciding to stick it out in an unhappy marriage, this plan, ultimately, backfires. So when you’re on the cusp or see-sawing about your decision to end your marriage, think about your children and specifically the positive outcomes associated with your bravery of deciding to move on.